Pops
by Jo Z. Pierce
Summary: Hellboy's out of work, but he's got something lined up... A tale of friendship, fluff, and smokes. Crossover with The Blues Brothers. Don't ask how, it just works... WARNING: Some cursing.


Dedicated to my favorite Hellboy fanfiction writer!

**Pops**

**by Jo Z. Pierce**

* * *

There is a room where the characters from all the fandoms spend their free time. They sit around, reading outdated magazines, and drinking coffee. It's the free stuff that comes in a carafe with powdered non-dairy creamer. They wait there for fanfic writers to call them up and give them some work to do.

It's like a _Fanfiction __Temporary Employment Service_.

Now, Harry Potter's got his own personal chair, with his name engraved into a little plaque on the armrest. He never uses it, though. In fact, by the time he wipes his feet on the doormat, he's got another call for another job. Harry's technically booked until the year 2344, with all the requests to star him in a fanfiction drama. Or love story.

There are a couple of characters like that. Naruto's got his own chair. Johnny Depp's got his own chair, too. And Johnny doesn't even use his characters' names. There are just too many. He's just Johnny.

And Kirk's got his own chair too, even though he's always fighting Picard for it.

Those stars are what the guys and gals in the waiting room call _"The Pops."_ Popular characters, from popular culture, who are always popping up in fanfic. Their services are always in demand. Everyone wants to hire them. Everyone wants to take them out.

Yes. They've got skills. And Napoleon Dynamite is damn bitter about it.

The others? They are just called unpopular. Or rare. Or obscure. They are so obscure, they can't even arrange a meeting to sit down and decide on what to call themselves. Even in that big room where they are all sitting, they can't arrange a meeting.

On any given day, that room is impossibly crowded. Who knows how many thousands and thousands of rare, obscure, and unpopular characters squeeze in there? They fight for a chair here or there. But no one dares sit in one of _The Pop's_ chairs. No one does it, even though you would hardly notice them if they did.

There's one character that you can't miss. How could you miss someone so huge? He's a giant of a character, and he always sits on the floor. He's too big for a chair, anyway. And even if he found a chair, he'd weigh too much for it to support him. So he always sits on the floor. And did I mention he was red? And looks like a monster? No. You couldn't miss him. And if you didn't notice him, for some reason, he'd do or say something to change that. Quickly.

Every once in a while, the phone rings. It means that someone's going to have work. Somewhere, a fanfic writer's muse was working, and one of the unemployed fandom characters was going on location.

The secretary picks up the phone, as if she didn't care. In fact, she doesn't. She holds the phone up against her enormous chest and calls out from behind her desk.

"Hey! Hellboy! Phone…"

Hellboy nibbles and gnaws at his cigar as he looks up. He pretends that he is annoyed to be disturbed.

"What does she want this time?" he grumbles.

"I don't know." In reality, she does. It's always the same. She's got another job for Hellboy. "You wanna take this call?"

"When is this place gonna get us cell phones?"

The secretary looks up at Hellboy, smirks, and waves the receiver in his direction.

"Yeah. Sure." Hellboy slowly gets up and makes his way through the crowd. All eyes turn to him. He could easily push aside the people, the anthropomorphic animals and the cartoon characters. "Why the hell are they always in my way?" he mumbles, just loud enough for everyone to understand him. Deep inside, however, he likes the fact that all eyes are on him.

Hellboy's getting work. He's got a new movie out, and the phone is starting to ring already.

Picking up the phone with the smaller of his two hands, he speaks through gritting teeth and a thick tube of rolled tobacco.

"Yeah, babe. Yeah. It's me, your one and only," Hellboy mumbles. "What's cooking, good looking?" He knows the answer, but loves the line.

Hellboy listens for a moment, draws in a deep breath, then exhales into the receiver. He repeats the process, this time sucking and drawing in cigar smoke.

"Are you kidding me? Another one?" Shaking his head, he exaggerates how annoyed he is. "How many of those writing contests can you enter?"

He pauses.

"That many, huh?" He forces back a smile, and puffs at the cigar some more. "Well, can't you write someone else in? Of all the fandoms in all the universes, why did you have to walk into mine?"

Hellboy pauses. For the first time, he is genuinely shocked.

"Dickens?!"

Suddenly a wave of heat rises through him. Usually, Hellboy resists heat like a pair of asbestos underwear. But this is different. This is the heat that stems out of fear, not the fiery pits of home.

Hellboy gets nervous. "She wrote Dickens!" he thinks in his head. "Damn! She wrote Dickens! She wrote Dickens!"

He lets out an awkward chuckle.

"Ah, crap. What if she replaces me?" he wonders. "What if I never work again?"

"Yeah, sure babe. I'd love to do some more with you. You know I love your scripts." He smiles broadly, looking nervously around the crowd. "Yeah. Sure. A father and son angst piece. Sure. Love working with Pops. Sounds great! See you Saturday."

He hates having to wait for the weekends, but by now Hellboy knows her schedule. He knows that that when she's at work, he's out of luck. Every once in a while he gets a part time gig when he wanders over to another fansite's _Temp Agency_. But he doesn't like it there. And their coffee is even worse than here.

He hands the phone back to the secretary, as she files her nails.

"Thanks," he says, turning back towards the crowd.

"Oh, and by the way, Red," the secretary calls after him, as she hangs up the phone. "You know there's no smoking in here."

Hellboy grits his teeth as he smiles. He's annoyed, but pleased just the same.

"Yeah," he mumbles and draws in another deep puff of the cigar smoke. "Yeah. I know."

"And you too, honey," she calls out, past Hellboy, to a man in dark sunglasses, a fedora, and a black suit. "You know there's no smoking in here!"

The man in black ignores her. He sinks deeper into his chair, covers his eyes with his hat, and inhales deeply.

Hellboy makes his way over to the man in black. He swats away a few talking pigs and an anime character, then sits down on the floor. The chairs shake a little. The man in black pulls his hat up again, and looks at the big red cigar smoking monster man in front of him. Reaching towards the ground, he picks up a bottle of Night Train, and checks to see that it is empty. He's not sure if he believes his eyes.

Hellboy nods to the man in black in greeting. The man in black doesn't smile back. He simply lifts an eyebrow. Hellboy notices he has a tattoo on his fingers that spells out "JAKE."

"Get lucky lately, Jake?" Hellboy asks. Depending on what the man in black's answer is, they might get along just fine.

"Chicks, yes. But no gigs," Jake says. "You?"

Hellboy nods in approval, then responds with a shrug of his massive shoulders. "What can I say. I'm the Big Red. Always in demand. Got a new movie out, you know?"

Finally, the man in black smiles - but only slightly. The two sit in silence for a few long seconds, smoking.

"Jake Blues," the man in black finally says, introducing himself. "But people call me Joliet Jake. As in Joliet Correctional."

"Hellboy..." the big guy says, as he resumes work on his cigar. Finally, he leans in and whispers to Jake. "My writer… She likes to write stories of me growing up. Holiday stuff. Relationships. She likes writing about my family, well, especially with my Pops..."

"No shit!" Jake says, mildly interested. "My little brother Elwood's got one of those chicks, too."

"We should get them together."

"He's out with her right now, doin' a job." After a long pause, he adds that instead of a father, Elwood's writer talks a lot about the janitor.

"The janitor?" Hellboy asks. His ears prick up again.

"Yeah. Curtis. The Janitor at the orphanage. He saved us from the nuns. Damn penguins. Always nagging us about heaven and hell..."

Jake smirks, as he thinks about the Mission from God he was on with his brother.

Hellboy smirks too. He thinks about hell, catholics, and his family. He thinks about his own adoptive father. He looks down at the crucifix on his big, red chest. Then he thinks about her, his very own personal writer. He sucks on his cigar, then smiles.

"Yeah. Guess I got lucky."

The two men nod at each other. Jake draws in one last drag of his cigarette, then snuffs it out. Without missing a beat, he pulls out another one. He offers one to Hellboy, who refuses. He's still working on his cigar nub. Jake pulls out a lighter. It's a zippo. Hellboy fights back a grin.

"What she like?" Jake asks. "This chick of yours."

"The best. Her stuff kicks ass. Kinda like I do."

"Superhero shit?" Jake asks, a little confused.

"Kinda. Comics. Supernatural. Crime fighting."

"You some kinda cop?" Jake asks, sitting up straight, and suddenly nervous. Hellboy sees how nervous that made him.

"Well, you know... real bad guys," Hellboy says, reassuringly. "Demons. Nazis."

"Nazis? Shit. I hate Nazis. Especially Illinois Nazis."

"And the best part?" Hellboy says, as he tries to change the subject. "She understands about my girl, Liz. And she works with it, you know? She doesn't try to self insert."

"Shit. Self-inserts," Jake says with a grimace. "I hate self-inserts."

Hellboy looks at Jake, then asks him about his own employment history. Jake looks back, annoyed.

"A writer? Yeah, I had one. But she tried to slash me."

"Crap."

"Yeah. With my own brother..."

"Ow!"

"Yeah. Dropped her. Real quick." Jake looks around, awkwardly. This time he wanted to change the subject. He checks his watch.

"Hungry?" Jake asks.

"Is the Pope Catholic?"

The two smirk at each other. This could work. The two men get up. Hellboy realizes that for a short human, this guy in black has a real big presence. Both easily make their way through the crowd and out the front door.

"Shit! Where does someone get something to eat around here?!" Jake asks.

"You like nachos?"

"In the mood for fried chicken," Jake responds.

"How about a candy bar?"

"Coke."

Finally, Hellboy finds a compromise. "How about a beer?"

Without skipping a beat, Jake points ahead of him, towards the first bar he sees. And all he says is "Hit it!"


End file.
